1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to automotive airbags and, in particular, this invention relates to devices and systems for deactivating airbags by emergency services personnel.
2. Background of the Invention
The presence of airbags in vehicles is a safety feature which has greatly reduced the fatalities and injuries caused by crashes. Worldwide, it has been estimated that about one-half million persons are killed and about 5 million persons are severely injured by motor vehicle accidents annually. In the United States, frontal airbags were required in all light vehicles sold after Sep. 1, 1998 to protect drivers and front passengers. Automobile makers began installing side impact airbags in approximately 1994. These side impact airbags are currently present in about 15%-35% of new light vehicles. Worldwide utilization of airbag technology is presently estimated at not more than 25% for driver airbags and 15% for passenger-side airbags. However, airbag manufacturing industry estimates project dramatic growth in the use of airbags over the next decade. For the year 2000, it is estimated that front impact airbags may be installed in over 80 million units and side impact airbags may be installed in more than 35 million units.
Following motor vehicle crashes, vehicular airbags usually deploy, thereby protecting the vehicle occupants from injury. However, vehicle airbags may fail to deploy during crashes for several reasons. Therefore, the increasing numbers of vehicles with airbags and the increasing numbers of airbags present in vehicles pose an increasingly grave and potentially fatal hazard to crash victims and rescue personnel when one or more vehicular airbags fail to deploy during a crash. These airbags may then inflate when emergency services personnel are extricating crash victims from cars, thereby injuring emergency services personnel and further injuring the crash victims. Thus, an ongoing and urgent need exists to enable emergency services personnel to dependably and safely deactivate undeployed airbags during the course of rescue operations. To this end, procedures have been developed to physically deactivate airbags in vehicles after accidents. However, the increasing number of airbags present in vehicles and the wide variety of airbag designs and placement (evermore frequently at multiple points within the same vehicle), tend to make the task of safely disarming these devices in vehicles an almost impossible undertaking. There is thus a need for a standardized, dependable, and universal method to deactivate undeployed airbags prior to extricating injured accident victims.